KitPlus | Articles

New Year, New Decade, New Rig

Some time ago I was fortunate enough to take part in a track day at Oulton Park, driving a souped up BMW M4. It was completely insane. Literally the most powerful car I’ve ever driven. From 0-60 in 4 seconds or something like that. I’m not Jeremy Clarkson so I can’t remember the exact figure. Anyway it was a really great experience, and something I...

Submitted by Alex Macleod

Published 27 January 2020

Test, Measurement and Standards

Who are AIMS?The Alliance for IP Media Solutions (AIMS), is a non-profit trade alliance that fosters the adoption of one set of common, ubiquitous, standards-based protocols for interoperability over IP in the media and entertainment, and professional audio/video industries. The members of AIMS are a group of like-minded industry manufacturers who...

Submitted by Alan Wheable

Published 25 January 2019

Video Tape recorders cannnot die.

In its simplest form, Tape Archiving requires:- 1) Playback decks 2) Tape Cleaning Facilities 3) Tape Baking Incubator/Oven 4) Ingest Platforms 5) Storage This article concentrates on what is often described as the weakest link, namely 1) above i.e. the Playback Decks and what could be another weak link, namely 2) i.e. Tape Cleaning Facilities. I h...

Submitted by KitPlus

Published 02 November 2017

Freelance finance

As a freelance cameraman working on varied productions, you need to be sure you always have the right kit for the job. Acquiring the latest equipment is a necessity, not a luxury; the difficulty is being certain you will be able to manage the cost. How can a freelancer be sure he can finance his equipment?First, before discussing the financing opti...

Submitted by Peter Savage 2

Published 22 July 2016

A stitch in time

by Thomas Dove Issue 98 - February 2015 "A stitch in time saves nine\" is an old saying: essentially it is saying fix a small problem now and it will save fixing a much bigger problem later. This applies in many areas - including broadcast. Kicking the error can down the road costs a lot more to fix the problem, particularly for audio and video fil...

Submitted by Thomas Dove

Published 01 March 2015

The business of University: Or lack thereof

by Ashley Golder Issue 97 - January 2015 University. Finally a time of critical thinking, training for your future career and coming out with enough knowledge to confidently acquire a job... or rather that is the plan. But what if that doesn\'t happen? When the £9,000 a year tuition fee, plus the expense of living costs rear their ugly heads and th...

Submitted by Ashley Golder

Published 01 February 2015

Finance - the shooting season with Peter Savage

Peter Savage goes biking and rediscovers that new isn’t always best for creating real impact, and that flexibility is the new game. The shooting season has started and, with it, the weather looks (well, this week at least) as if we could at last see some summer. The light is better, the days are longer, and the summer sports programme has kicked of...

Submitted by Dave Martland

Published 01 July 2013

SOCIAL FINANCE AND LAS VEGAS : A WORLD APART OR ARE THEY...

Peter Savage draws parallels between funding for social benefit and the razzamatazz of NAB in Las Vegas. Last month we discussed crowdfunding in the context of TV and film production. It’s funding again this month because, during our ‘Look, Listen, Experience’ speaking tour, several people asked me whether social and/or community funding are potent...

Submitted by Bob Pank#

Published 01 June 2012

NAB 2012 Kit Review used by BroadcastShow

NAB kit review:-So pre-NAB we are all very busy organising interviews with 70 exhibitors over 4 days covering 4 halls and in our case around 28 miles. Late last year we developed an online interview booking system at www.broadcastshow.com which allows exhibitors to book one or more 15 minute slots, enter stand information and questions they may lik...

Submitted by Bob Pank#

Published 01 June 2012

Sennheiser 8060 Review

It’s always good to strive to better yourself, or at least the quality of your work. Here at TV-Bay it’s something we always aim to do. So this year, for our NAB 2012 coverage we wanted to see if we could improve upon our sound recording during the BroadcastShow interviews. If you don't know, I walk around these shows, camera crew in tow, interview...

Submitted by Bob Pank#

Published 01 June 2012

A morning with MTF¦¦.

A morning with MTF……. Ever wondered what that little blue ring you see between the camera body and lens is? Lens adapters are not unique and are available from many people for many application, what however makes MTF a bit different and what sets their products apart as being arguably the best in the world…and made in the UK?Before visiting MTF I s...

Submitted by Bob Pank#

Published 01 March 2012

Review on the Autocue SSP17 Starter Series

The time has come. My home made “autocue”, although working well, needed to be upgraded. It had served me well for a couple of years, but I needed something a bit higher quality and slightly bigger. So Autocue kindly loaned me one of their SSP17 Starter Package prompters. Their Starter Series of prompters is exactly that, it’s their lower end promp...

Submitted by Bob Pank#

Published 01 February 2012

Austerity Cuts What do they mean for you and me

Whichever newspaper you read (or several, if you are a news-junkie like me), last week the big story was all about austerity cuts, Greek haircuts and numerous other types of cuts that don’t sound particularly pleasant to the uninformed masses – you and me. So I thought I would cut through the jargon to look into what it really means to the man in t...

Submitted by Bob Pank#

Published 01 December 2011

Neither a borrower nor a lender be....

Much has been written in the press recently about access to, or more frequently, the absence of funding for small businesses, otherwise known as SMEs (small and medium enterprises). But how do we define a small enterprise and when does a company transition from a small to medium enterprise?The official definitions are as follows: a small company ha...

Submitted by Bob Pank#

Published 01 March 2011

True Colours Shine Through With CCS

When you are a broadcast engineer working in front of a stack of LCD monitors, seeing a significant difference between the brightness and colour of each monitor can be both annoying and tiring on the eyes. Worse still, if you in a Master Control Room and the pictures have taken on a sickly green hue, how do you know that it is just the monitors at...

Submitted by Bob Pank#

Published 01 March 2011